Sandro said nothing, just watched wide-eyed as she leaned down to look him in the face.
‘I asked him for money. All right. I did.’ And then she sat hard down beside him, too close, hands clasped on her narrow knees so tightly the tendons stood out white.
‘Why did you need it?’ asked Sandro quietly, but he knew already: the absent maid and the lifeless house told him.
‘I needed it because I need somewhere to live. That’s why I was talking to that little creep Galeotti, too.’ She wasn’t meeting his eye. Sandro looked around the room.
‘Somewhere to live? This place not good enough for you?’
‘He’s left me,’ she said then, and all the fight seemed to go out of her. ‘Are you satisfied now? Paolo’s left me. I’m just a squatter here, they all know it now, that’s why I sent them away. When I saw the maid gossiping with Irene Brunello it was the last straw.’ Her head bowed. ‘I’ve got till the end of the month, when Paolo gets back from the boat.’ Her head came up again. ‘So I went to Claudio and asked him for money. He could get it through the bank, it would be so easy. He could call it a loan, on favourable terms. So easy.’ Her eyes were wide, distant. ‘The great advantage of a small bank. Discretion.’
‘How much did you ask for?’ He put the question carefully, and still it seemed to surprise her.
‘What?’
‘Was it a hundred thousand euros, a little more perhaps?’
She frowned, bewilderment turning to offence. Perhaps a hundred thousand wouldn’t be enough for a woman like her. ‘I didn’t mention specific sums,’ she said, trying to stand on her dignity.
Sandro could feel his theory, his house of cards, struggling to stay upright. ‘Did he know what you were going to ask?’ he asked, willing it to stay in place. ‘Had you spoken to him during the day, so that perhaps he might — make arrangements?’
Her frown deepened.
‘What? No. I didn’t — I didn’t even know myself. That I — that I would be able to do it. To go over there and ask him. I only said — could I meet him? He didn’t even want to do that. He said he needed to get to Irene and the children.’
Damn, damn. Sandro put his head in his hands, thinking furiously. He should have asked Viola, when exactly did Brunello move that money? Because if Claudio Brunello had had no idea she was after money, who was it for?
But Giorgio Viola had told him, of course he had. Last thing, he had said, he’d moved the money on Friday at the very end of the working day.
But he persisted: there was something there, there was some rage buried inside Marisa Goldman, and all he had to do was access it. She could have done it. She was desperate enough. Might she know Gulli? She might: they all knew someone like him, these slim-wristed, crisp-shirted, fragrant men and women, they all had someone to do their dirty work for them even if it was just slipping them a wrap of cocaine.
He tried another tack.
‘Saturday morning,’ he said. ‘Did you call him? Did you ask again? Did you say you’d tell Irene if he didn’t do something? Is that why he came back into Florence, is that why he lied to his wife about where he was going?’
With some connection he’d made but couldn’t articulate, Sandro was reminded of that scrap of paper Pietro had found in Brunello’s car. Josef’s name and mobile number. He’d been so sure it was Josef who had called the bank manager.
Josef’s mobile: he’d had it Saturday morning. But when he’d staggered out of Liliana’s lock-up on Tuesday, he’d asked if he could borrow hers. Sandro’s head ached with it all.
‘In God’s name,’ Marisa Goldman said now, and she looked at the end of her tether. ‘What kind of woman do you think I am? Blackmail? No.’
As if it wasn’t already blackmail, thought Sandro, just to ask Brunello. She didn’t even need to mention their affair. Or whatever it had been.
‘He said no, and I went home and locked myself in my room and cried. For three days. Satisfied? You can ask the servants about that, when they’re back from their surprise holiday. Irene started phoning me on the Sunday.’
‘You didn’t answer.’
Marisa didn’t even look up. ‘She wouldn’t leave a message, but of course my phone recognizes Claudio’s seaside number. I just listened to it ring and didn’t pick up.’
Poor Irene Brunello, going out of her mind with worry. But then again, Marisa Goldman wouldn’t have been able to help with that.
‘So you didn’t phone him on Saturday.’
She shook her head savagely. ‘You’re crazy. I didn’t talk to him after that Friday evening. I asked him for money and he just said, no. He said, his family needed his money.’ Her mouth was set and sulky. ‘He was quite cool about it. He said, if he thought I really needed it, he would have found a way to help me, from his own pocket, what I was suggesting was blackmail — all that. He said, if you feel you must tell Irene, then tell her.’
Sandro leaned forward, observing her intently.
‘He — moved some money,’ he said. ‘Last thing Friday. Claudio moved a little over one hundred thousand euros at dose of business Friday night.’
Slumped back into the sofa’s cushions, Marisa Goldman stared at him oddly. Let out a small, confused laugh. ‘Claudio? After all that upright stuff he gave me, about how he could never abuse his position?’ She folded her arms across her narrow body, and let out the laugh again, but it sounded no more certain. ‘All along he was fiddling?’ Her frown intensified, her whole face contracted, and she had become old and angry.
‘You didn’t phone him on Saturday,’ repeated Sandro. Trying to make sense of it, the surge of facts hammering to be allowed in.
‘The way he looked at me. I could have killed him. But I would never have spoken to him about it again.’
She caught a look on Sandro’s face.
‘What?’ And then she laughed. ‘You think I did it? You think I had something to do with Claudio’s death?’ Flung her head back. ‘I suppose if I’d known he’d been screwing the bank over all along, I might have been furious enough.’
Her laugh grew louder. And Sandro just sat there and waited for it to stop.
And then it did stop, quite suddenly, and Marisa sat up, her eyes bright for the first time since she’d answered the door to him.
‘He transferred the money at close of business? That’s what you said?’
Sandro nodded, his attention fixed now by the glitter in the green-gold eyes. She could have been beautiful, he thought, unwillingly. ‘Yes,’ he said.
She stared back. ‘Claudio wasn’t there for close of business last Friday. He left at five, last Friday. He was angry about it, it was my fault, he said. He told them it was because of the holiday, but the truth was he knew I was coming over and he needed to factor in extra time. He didn’t want to be late leaving for the seaside.’ Her shoulders were straight. ‘He wasn’t there.’
*
Rounding the corner of the narrow street, Giuli saw the place, standing mournful and dirty behind its pine hoarding and felt a little throb of something like revenge. At the sight of a sad, aged flasher in a grubby raincoat, too old to shock anyone any more. And then that small satisfaction was gone and Giuli was still staring at the Carnevale’s dead and dusty windows, a knot of hard fear forming under her ribs.
The street was empty, and suddenly almost dark. It must have been close on eleven, but the sky seemed to be coming right down on top of the city, thick and grey. She’d come past the bank where Brunello had worked, glancing quickly inside as she passed. Some kind of official sticker had been plastered on the door, informing the clientele of an investigation, invoking the appropriate section of whatever law they’d needed to seal the place off. There’d been a light on behind the smoked glass. Giuli had hurried on and turned the corner.